Traction in a heated pool can be highly beneficial. In such traction, the patient is typically suspended from the upper body, such as suspension by the shoulders in a harness. At the same time, weights are applied to the waist of the patient. The patient, fitted with the harness and weights, typically walks into or is moved into the vertical traction position in a heated hydrotherapy pool.
Unfortunately, this treatment has an extraordinary drawback. Upon leaving traction under hydrotherapy, extraordinary pain is a common phenomena. Specifically, the patient experiences an immediate reversal of the traction. The tensile forces on the patient's spine are immediately reversed as the patient walks or climbs from the hydrotherapy pool. It is common for such patients to experience such extraordinary pain that they fall to their hands and knees refusing to move until time passes and the pain begins to subside. to be solved. As the discovery of the problem to be solved can constitute invention, insofar as mention of this problem has not been made elsewhere, I claim invention.
Perry U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,126 entitled Flotation Controlled Spinal Decompression is an example of hydrotherapy administered in the vertical disposition. The patient is suspended in a heated pool. Suspension occurs either by the head or, alternatively, by a flotation jacket exerting a buoyant upward force at the shoulders. The waist of the patient is weighted. Between the shoulders and the waist the patient is subject to tension during traction. At the same time the patient is typically immersed in heated water so that the required therapy occurs.